A California labor union defied pressure from Gov. Gavin Newsom and nearly every major liberal institution Thursday and confirmed it will take a 5% one-time tax on billionaires to November voters — even after offering to cut the rate in half and still getting turned away.

The California ballot fight over a proposed $100 billion billionaire tax has produced one of the stranger political coalitions in recent state history: the California Medical Association and the California School Boards Association — institutions whose members depend on stable public funding for healthcare and education — have joined forces with tech billionaires and a Newsom political operative to kill a measure designed to shore up the state's Medicaid system after federal cuts. The union driving the measure, SEIU Healthcare Workers West, has forged ahead anyway, officially locking in November placement this week and dismissing its critics as "totally out of touch."

For months, critics of the California wealth tax push have included an expected roster of opponents: Silicon Valley moguls, venture capitalists, and a $118 million opposition fund seeded by Sergey Brin. What changed last week is who's on that side now.

A new coalition that includes the California Medical Association and the California School Boards Association formally came out against the proposal, arguing in a joint statement that "the dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California's revenue even more volatile," according to the Associated Press. The groups whose members administer and receive Medi-Cal reimbursements and public school budgets have concluded the revenue risk outweighs the funding opportunity.

Their argument tracks with the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office's own analysis: while the measure would generate tens of billions in its early years, it would cause income tax revenues to decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually thereafter, as wealthy Californians move assets — or themselves — out of state. California already relies on its top 1% of earners for roughly half of all personal income tax revenue, an unusual structural dependency that the LAO projects a one-time wealth tax would worsen.

Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser leading the opposition committee, put it bluntly in a statement reported by the AP: "Driving away the state's sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag."

The union behind the measure, SEIU Healthcare Workers West, tried to thread the needle before this week's deadline. It offered Newsom a scaled-back version of the proposal — a 2% tax on billionaires rather than 5% — asking him to back it in exchange for withdrawing the original initiative. The governor's office declined, leaving no compromise on the table. The union responded by announcing it will go forward to November as planned.

"I am all in on this," SEIU Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are "totally out of touch," per the AP. The measure, which would impose a one-time levy on Californians with a net worth exceeding $1 billion as of Jan. 1, 2026, aims to generate $100 billion in revenue dedicated primarily to replacing federal Medicaid funding lost under recent Trump administration cuts.

The political logic behind the union's perseverance is real, if risky. Martin Gilens, a political science professor at UCLA, told the AP there's "a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do" — including Democratic anxiety about federal program cuts, affordability concerns, and the widening wealth gap. But Gilens also noted that support for ballot initiatives typically erodes as Election Day approaches and that a successful measure would likely face immediate legal challenges.

The opposition has not been idle. Brin has donated $82 million to a committee called Building a Better California, which has raised more than $118 million total from fewer than a dozen donors, per the AP. Many Silicon Valley figures who publicly oppose the measure have already moved assets — or themselves — to other states to avoid it.

The Dissent previously reported in June that Brin, Marc Andreessen, and Stripe's Patrick Collison organized a Signal chat to coordinate opposition to the measure. The union gathered nearly double the required signatures regardless, making the November ballot slot a foregone conclusion — the formal announcement Thursday was confirmation, not surprise.

What November adds is clarity about the stakes. Voters will be asked to decide whether a one-time $100 billion injection for Medicaid is worth the structural revenue risk the LAO and opposition healthcare groups say follows it. The unions say yes. California's own medical establishment says no.